Best Sounding LPs

Jean, if you like "Raincoat" try "Shot Through the Heart". IMHO, a better album if just SLIGHTLY less "audiophile" than Raincoat. Or, "The Hunter"! :-) A couple more well recorded female artist LP's are "Between the Lines" (original CBS recording) and "Breaking Silence" by Janis Ian. And, the Bernie Grunman re-mastering of Linda Ronstadt hits on "A Retrospective" - or anything mastered by Grundman, for that matter.

One that might never be mentioned - War - "The World is a Ghetto" on the original UA label. "Cisco Kid" takes on a whole new flavor if the only place you ever heard it was AM radio and "City, Country, City" is just outstanding. Someone was wondering the other day about LP's used to set VTA. There's a good one!

Thanks for that 4yanx, they're on the list. Female artists, I love the genre! One female singer whose single LP is extremely interesting and fun in a pop-jazzy kind of way, but which either sounds good (really just acceptable) or muddy depending on your system's balance is Rosie Vela, a stunning beauty from the '80s: worth the photo on the cover alone! Anyone have her? Anyone find a system in which she sounds good? And for audiophile-type sound quality (but ordinary pressings) with extremely interesting music, let's not forget Laurie Anderson, "Strange Angels" and "Mister Heartbreak", featuring the voice of William Burroughs pretending not to be Thomas Pynchon! Excellent music, excellent recording, and Burroughs tweaking the nose of those who believe that he and Pynchon are one and the same man (personally, I think so). This is fun! Any more off-beat suggestions? Are you taking notes, Bsal?

The best sounding LPs are the ones that bring you great joy when you listen to them...regardless of surface noise ;)

Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" works for me.

The best sounding jazz-pop lp, which I use as a reference, is Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly." I have the Quiex-2 version. Terrific.

Jazz - Coltrane's Blue Train on 45rpm.